Saturday, July 28, 2007

The Militant's Review: 'The Simpsons Movie'

So The Militant got to go see The Simpsons Movie after all on the evening of opening day at The Arclight. As a self-professed Simpsons geek, it was more of a cultural event than anything else. The movie was funny and entertaining, though the Militant was expecting a little more, even noticing that nearly all of the subplots were done in previous episodes in some form or another (though that might have been intentional as an homage to the series...but after 18 years of episodes, storylines have become cyclical), overall the plot (which also was somewhat derived) stuck to Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie as the primary characters with most everyone else more or less delivering least one token gag. The producers used the movie format to not only show a little more on the sides, but to get away with more kinds of humor or references on the bigscreen with a PG-13 (Or is that a SPIDER PG-13?) than they could even do on FOX.

But back to the cultural experience, it turned the usual adventures of Our Favorite Family (which is normally enjoyed alone or with a living room full of family or friends) into an even larger, communal experience, with hundreds of people laughing at pretty much the same gags you are. That in itself is worth the value of the movie alone.

Manifesto

A 100% Los Angeles native, the Militant Angeleno lives in a compound in an unspecified neighborhood of central Los Angeles. His life consists largely of his various adventures around the city, which are documented in this blog. The Militant is also multi-modal and is not dependent on any one mode of transportation, although he is most known for traversing the City's streets via bicycle. The Militant can be described as part-activist, part-superhero, giving the voice to the voiceless and silencing those who just plain whine too much. Partly because of his selfless motives, he prefers to refer to himself in the third person, as the first-person is too self-centered. The Militant is anonymous and goes to great lengths to protect his identity and is aided and protected by an unspecified number of operatives, who are sworn to secrecy as to his identity. Most important, the Militant's ultimate objective is not to be the Militant Angeleno, but to empower and enlighten other Angelenos, so that they may be militants in their own right. Oh yeah, Go Dodgers!

Contacting The Militant Angeleno

Do you have a question for the Militant Angeleno (sorry, all questions regarding his identity will be ignored)? Would you like to send hate mail (or love mail, even)? Do you want to know how you can join the Angeleno Militia? Here's how!